fools wise, has made them fortunate in emulation of virtue; and most favours those operations the web of which is most purely her own; whence it is that the simplest amongst us bring to pass great business, both public and private; and, as Seiramnes, the Persian, answered those who wondered that his affairs succeeded so ill, considering that his deliberations were so wise, “that he was sole master of his designs, but that success was wholly in the power of fortune”; these may answer the same, but with a contrary turn.  Most worldly affairs are performed by themselves

“Fata viam inveniunt;”

          ["The destinies find the way.”—­AEneid, iii. 395]

the event often justifies a very foolish conduct; our interposition is little more than as it were a running on by rote, and more commonly a consideration of custom and example, than of reason.  Being formerly astonished at the greatness of some affair, I have been made acquainted with their motives and address by those who had performed it, and have found nothing in it but very ordinary counsels; and the most common and usual are indeed, perhaps, the most sure and convenient for practice, if not for show.  What if the plainest reasons are the best seated? the meanest, lowest, and most beaten more adapted to affairs?  To maintain the authority of the counsels of kings, it needs not that profane persons should participate of them, or see further into them than the outmost barrier; he who will husband its reputation must be reverenced upon credit and taken altogether.  My consultation somewhat rough-hews the matter, and considers it lightly by the first face it presents:  the stress and main of the business I have been wont to refer to heaven;

“Permitte divis caetera.”

          ["Leave the rest to the gods.”—­Horace, Od., i. 9, 9.]

Good and ill fortune are, in my opinion, two sovereign powers; ’tis folly to think that human prudence can play the part of Fortune; and vain is his attempt who presumes to comprehend both causes and consequences, and by the hand to conduct the progress of his design; and most especially vain in the deliberations of war.  There was never greater circumspection and military prudence than sometimes is seen amongst us:  can it be that men are afraid to lose themselves by the way, that they reserve themselves to the end of the game?  I moreover affirm that our wisdom itself and consultation, for the most part commit themselves to the conduct of chance; my will and my reason are sometimes moved by one breath, and sometimes by another; and many of these movements there are that govern themselves without me:  my reason has uncertain and casual agitations and impulsions: 

         “Vertuntur species animorum, et pectora motus
          Nunc alios, alios, dum nubila ventus agebat,
          Concipiunt.”

["The aspects of their minds change; and they conceive now such
ideas, now such, just so long as the wind agitated the clouds.” 
—­Virgil, Georg., i. 42.]